knit Archives • Jessica Smith Creates

February 5, 2020March 6, 2022

Rust Bucket

Late last year I made my quickest sweater ever.

I mean, if we’re counting, it’s my third knitted sweater, and fourth sweater overall (after 2 crochet ones), so it’s not like this is a huge track record to beat.

But oh boy was it quick!

Two weeks.

Feel free to laugh, but I’ll be the one laughing in an incredibly warm and squooshy alpaca sweater.

Also this sweater cost 20 dollars. And time.

Since I moved to New England in early fall, I needed to get a new driver’s license. The closest DMV to me is between 30 and 45 minutes away depending on whether I’m functionally awake, whether it’s precipitating, and how far (not) over the speed limit I want to drive on unfamiliar roads. Luckily this DMV had Saturday hours, but only until noon.

Have I ever told you that I’m not a morning person?

So the way I convinced myself to go to the DMV was to treat myself to yarn afterwards! And it was such a great store. Yarn piled taller than me, an excellent sale rack, and such nice employees! I think I spent an hour just checking out what they had!

While perusing the sale section I found a bag of multiple skeins of alpaca yarn marked at $10 in browns and greys. Then I found some coordinating rust alpaca and got 2 skeins for $5 each. So the brown is Mirasol Sulka, the rust is Mirasol K’acha, and sure the grey is Araucania Coliumo.

And then I set out to make a sweater that did not require five billion skeins when I had six. I started out using the Chunky Knit Fisherman’s Rib Sweater by Handy Little Me before getting to the end of the first ball and realizing that I would never ever make it to the end of the sweater. So I ripped some back and started freestyling and knitted and knitted and knitted.

The real winner here is finding the Fisherman’s Rib. I love the very squish that it makes! So stretchy too, and very plush.

I ended up with something like kimono sleeves with a tiny eyelet detail and a round neck. In the pics I’m wearing it over my first Sew Over It Vintage Shirtdress.

And it’s warm and it’s comfy, and it’s cropped in a good way! I’ve got a few more knits for the blog, so I suppose that’ll be the plan for the next post! See you next time!

April 25, 2019January 1, 2020

Movie Socks

socks on

I’m definitely an impulse knitter. Unlike sewing where I’ll plan and mostly execute, with knitting I’ll get started on a project and let it simmer for altogether too long until I marathon to the finish.

These socks were started the night I saw Deadpool for the first time, probably a week after it’d been released in theaters (prime knitting in an empty theater time).

The first one has a bump, or rather a pattern miscalculation, near the toe from an unfortunate incident with a movie called “How to Be Single.” I was there for a friend’s birthday, but I couldn’t stand the movie, so I was the weirdo who pulled out spiky sock knitting during a friend’s birthday outing to a chick flick and then cupcakes (RIP Sugarland). These socks are old enough that the cupcake place has since closed.

sockblock

I would tinker with these at various movies, watching TV, passenger in long car trips for a while. Definitely some Star Wars was input. Possibly Spiderman Homecoming.

And at some point I finished the first sock. I should note here that I was basically making this pattern up as I went. I knew I wanted a small twist up the front, and a larger twist up the back leg, so that’s what I aimed to design. With mixed, but overall good success.

sockprogress

I had taken moderately good notes on my self directed pattern, but second sock syndrome hit me hard. When I finally did start working on the second, I had accidentally deleted part of the notes… Whoops.

So the second sock is definitely more sister than twin, but I think that’s okay… Because it’s done!

FINISHEDSOCKS!!!

Over the holidays in 2018 I finished the sock during the super long drive.

socks watercolor.jpg

Victory! Till the next round of procrastination, at least.

October 17, 2018August 22, 2022

Diving Deep Shawl

This might be one of the quickest yarn-buying to final project finishes that I’ve had so far…

I bought the yarn in January from Me & Ewe in Austin TX as part of my “buy yarn/fabric as souvenirs” initiative to help me stop buying stupid trinkets I don’t need and instead come out with things I’ll treasure. My backpack from last year’s fabric purchase is most definitely my most used item in my life.

It’s a fine single ply yarn that is a merino wool and silk blend from a spinner in Texas. The colors remind me of a tropical ocean under moonlight, or rather what I think that would look like.

spread

Then I got into a stage of my home life (at the time) where I realized that I couldn’t accommodate nearly every craft I’m fond of in my tiny hole of a room (only slightly bigger than a walk in closet) except for yarncrafts, which had easily accessible supplies and very little footprint.

back

So I got to searching Ravelry, bought this excellent pattern called Pearla Beaded Lace Shawl (though I chose not to bead it) from ByTheLilyPond.com, though I did purchase it on Ravelry.

I found it a pretty quick knit, and very intuitive to knit after a bit. I knit it all from looking at a computer, moving a rectangle around in Adobe Acrobat and scribbling a small key on the page so I wouldn’t have to continually scroll up and down, which made it easy to knit wherever I was. I’d most definitely make this shawl again, and I’ll consider it for the next time I go to a new place and buy yarn!

hemi

And I finished in early April. Between it and my NOLA Shawl I can wear a shawl with pretty much any item of clothing. Which is great! I love unusual accessories!

frontwrapped

September 16, 2014August 19, 2018

Hybrid

Do you remember when I made a wristband out of this nice minty aqua yarn? I still love that thing. I told you that I had plans for the rest of the ball, but if I remember correctly I told you my plans were top secret… or something like that.

Ta da! I present my knit and sewn hybrid!

I had most of the knit part finished before I posted about the wristband, but I was really more interested in figuring out how to attach it to the part of the knit fabric I had previously cut off a dress.

The story of the dress: I got this dress in Germany on a visit with my aunt, who I rarely get to see. It was love at first sight with this dress. It was also about seven years ago. The dress didn’t fit well by today, and I would always have a serious case of panty lines. And who wants that. So I cut the skirt off to make this shirt, which is well cropped at just hitting the waistband of my jeans, so better with high waisted bottoms, and I had this leftover fabric. I had been planning to make it into a color blocked shirt with a yoke.

But then I saw how close this yarn was in color. Match made in heaven.

I used my wristband as a pseudo swatch and just cast on a bunch of stitches. Throughout the entire make I waffled on construction details and sizing and how much yarn I would need. mostly the latter, as I had a finite amount to work with. Because of this I used stockinette stitch with a small openwork pattern, mostly for the yarn conservation reasons. I was banking on the idea that the sewn part would flatten the stockinette stitch roll. It mostly works.

I measured how far apart the straps would need to be, then I realized I just how little yarn I had. Racerback it would be then! Once I got to a reasonable back length, I bound off and used the remaining yarn to cast on for i-cord. And that’s how I finished the ball. Originally I used a bit of some peaches and cream top add some length to the i-cord and more “seamlessly” connect the segments. I wore it for a day, but by the end of the day the back had stretched out way too much… Waaaaay too much.

So I procrastinated for a month. And now I’ve finished it. Took out the peaches and cream and used a different attachment method for the i-cord which helped to shorten it. And I used elastic to keep the top corners of the yoke tight. And it fits nicely and is cute, and because the seasons are changing probably won’t get much wear this year, but next year! Except now that I’m looking at photos the back falls below my bra strap… Any suggestions? I might need to get more creative with elastic.

Lesson of the post – I-cord is super duper stretchy.

August 26, 2014August 19, 2018

Burgundy Bliss?

I should not be in charge of titles. They rarely work out well… ie see the title for this post.

Anyways, I finally finished one of my knitted shrug plans though it is not in any way the shrug it was intended to be.

Remember last year how I said I was going to make a Cardilero?

That didn’t happen.

Did I tell you last spring that I frogged it?

I cast on early on in the summer, and honestly that one didn’t make it far either.

But then I got a library card. And visited the knitting section. And found this book. It intrigued me, as I very much dislike seaming and finishing knits.

The cable was actually from a shrug pattern, Serenity Shrug… but how often do I actually follow patterns?

Especially knitted ones.

So I took the lovely cable and followed nearly the entire instructions for the back… Maybe mixing up which size I was making. That happens a bunch. And then I got close to the sleeves.

Now I was making this in the heat of July. Yes I was indoors, and yes I had air conditioning, but anytime its super exhausting outside, you can feel it inside too, right? So why was I making a fall-weight shrug thing in July?

Don’t expect an answer for that.

I don’t know why I couldn’t understand what the pattern was asking me, but it just wasn’t working for me, so I decided to take out some circular needles and zip away on my own.

The cap sleeves were accomplished by short rows, though they looked terrible the first time around. I had to frog pretty much all the short rows of my first attempt, mainly because then (and realistically now) I had difficulties understanding how short rows were meant to work, and I was also attempting to correct the imbalance of the back of the arcscye being too far back on my shoulders. The second time around I ignored it. I’m never going to see it!

The second attempt was also created with the intention of almost creating an as-you-go-sleevehead.

After completing the cap sleeves on both sides, I decided that I probably would wear it even less if I continued to fiddle and make the sleeves longer. So I stopped and edged the sleeves and main body opening with my fuzzy German souvenir yarn and called it a day.

If it looks a little puffy from the back, well… I don’t have to look at it! And its warm, which resolves many looks related issues. It also doesn’t help that my tripod is short, even for me, so the views are all from below, adding natural puffyness (and the fact that my tiny bow on the back of my Nettie got in the way).

And there you have it!

P.S. In the pictures it does seem to blend well with my chocolate Nettie, don’t you think?

July 9, 2014August 19, 2018

Sock Progress – Part 1

So it looks like it’s going to be an every two day update on the socks, which suits me just fine.

On Monday night I was supposed to be making a gauge swatch.

That didn’t work out.

Instead I spent four hours making a center pull ball of yarn by hand. Four hours. But I have now kinda fallen in love with center pull balls, so we’ll see what the future holds for me and yarn balls.

But doesn’t my yarn ball vaguely look like Turnip Head’s head, from Howl’s Moving Castle? I think so.

Then instead of casting on for a gauge swatch I just went ahead and cast on for the full sock. I know, I know, but I was going to treat it as a double gauge swatch, if it wasn’t working out I’d frog it. But it just so happened to fit the specifications quite well, so this morning I trudged on once I had gotten enough to tell. I should admit now that I’m not using the proper sized needles, because I don’t own them, but also that I’m a tight knitter, and often need to move up needle sizes anyway. It has worked out, that the width of stitches is proper, even if the height is a good amount off.

And so I spent about ten hours of close to continuous knitting on Tuesday. Yesterday.

When I knit, I grasp the knitting needle with my ring finger for stabilization. My ring finger swelled after all that knitting. So much that I couldn’t bend it well and it’s throbbing a bit. That’s why I stopped, really.

But I’m proud of my progress. The entire leg part and heel are completed, and I’ve got a round or two into the main foot part as well. Or gussets… I’m not up to date on my sock anatomy.

I’ll check back in on Friday!